Ew ew and horribly horribly ew!

I just read about the Swiss artist who uses real dead animals in her artwork--cats & bunnies and stuff--on one of the blogs I read. It's horribly disturbing. The pictures are not at all pretty, I don't think. The gallery on which the pictures appear says "Most people who see Nathalia's pictures for the first time are impressed by how beautiful they are." I don't think they are beautiful at all. It's bad, obscure, stupid art, in my opinion. I guess everyone has a right to their opinion, but still.

There's something that looks like a tear in the eye of the bunny that was on Mock Turtle. So I think about this.... is the problem I have with it that the animals she's used "so far" are domesticated pet-types? What is the difference between killing an animal for art and putting its head on a pedestal of some sort, and having a big, juicy hamburger? Is there a real difference, or is it only degrees of difference? What happens to cow heads that become McDonald's product?

I mean, I like meat. I really wish and have done so many times that I could make myself commit to becoming vegetarian... I understand it's my choice, and that it's totally selfish of me to not make it. But that doesn't mean I don't generally realize how horrible and hypocritical it is of me to claim to care that a bunny or cat is killed for art's sake but not mind because a less-cute animal dies for my lunch. It's a very problematic conundrum-- one I'm not sure how to settle. But I do have to say that there seems to be some degree of worse evil if the animal is merely being used to create art. It's a lot like the deer on a wall-hanger "art" that one finds in Texas a lot (hunters, you know). But at the very least, I can say that the meat was used and not just tossed away (most hunters consume their stuff.)

Anyway. I feel this entry spinning out into a place I didn't really want it to go. This is a disturbing kind of art. I get it that art is supposed to make us uncomfortable-- but I don't think it's supposed to have other helpless victims too. As Andrew very concisely put it, "it's the pointlessness of it that's disturbing." The woman could use digital manipulation to do what she does. That's part of the upsetting nature... it's like the "rabbit died" pregnancy tests of the past. As soon as they could do it otherwise, they did. So why keep killing innocent animals just to take pictures of them? Especially if your message is so obscure that the only political thing we get from it is the animal rights one?